10/16/22 - smart, useful science stuff about COVID-19
UPDATED BIVALENT BOOSTERS
BOOSTERS:
1) Updated “bivalent” COVID-19 booster shots that became available to some U.S. adults in early September now are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for people ages 5 and older (as of 10/12/22). One qualification is that 2 months should have passed since your last COVID-19 vaccine dose. Also, if you recently were infected with SARS-CoV-2, the agency says you “may consider delaying” your next COVID-19 vaccine dose a little longer, by 3 months beyond when you first tested positive. The CDC’s recommendations for COVID-19 protection, including the new booster, differ for people who have weakened, or compromised, immune systems. To simplify the question of when a specific individual, such as someone with a weakened immune system, should get an updated booster, the CDC has published a helpful “tool.” It is located half way down this page (updated 10/14/22); click on the dark blue-green box that reads “Find Out When to Get a Booster”: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html.
2) The updated COVID-19 boosters are called bivalent because they protect against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus as well as against two recently circulating Omicron sub-variants (or sub-lineages) of SARS-CoV-2. The updated boosters protect people better than earlier boosters did against the circulating Omicron sub-variants (called BA.4 and BA.5). Currently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control considers people 5 years and older up-to-date with COVID-19 boosters if they have received a “primary series” – two initial Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, or Novavax shots; or one Johnson & Johnson shot) – AS WELL AS 1 booster shot. (This standard pertains to people who are not moderately or severely immune compromised. Again, see this link for detailed guidance for people with weakened immune systems.) This CDC page, updated 10/14/22, includes many details about COVID-19 vaccination recommendations, by age group and the maker of the COVID-19 vaccines you received, as well as advice on mixing Pfizer and Moderna boosters: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html.
3) I hadn’t realized this – “Once the new booster was authorized for use, the old booster lost authorization [from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control]. This means that any booster that someone aged 5+ receives will be the updated, Omicron-adapted formulation,” according to a 10/13/22 post by Unbiased Sci Pod. “You do not need to ask for it specifically”:
4) About half of the U.S. has received at least one COVID-19 booster shot, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control data, updated on 10/13/22: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-total-admin-count-total.
5) Back in a 3/18/22 story, Katherine J. Wu at The Atlantic anticipated our current situation—relatively low rates of people in the U.S. to date have received their updated flu and/or updated COVID-19 shots. Wu wrote in March: “It seems inevitable that someday, the entire American public will be asked to sign up for [COVID-19] shots again—perhaps quite soon, perhaps every fall [←-link added by me, not in original, because it lends support to this forecast], as some vaccine makers would like. We have just one template for this: the flu shot. And expecting even similar levels of so-so uptake may be optimistic.” The story states that three factors tend to predict the appeal of any particular vaccine: the convenience of getting it, the vaccine’s effectiveness (and perceived effectiveness, the story also suggests), and the perceived threat of the disease: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/03/flu-shot-covid-vaccine-mandates/627104/.
TREATMENTS:
6) A lot of people I know have tested positive in the past several months for SARS-CoV-2 and experienced what is classified as a “mild” case of COVID-19. Many of these people, even those who are older and/or who have underlying conditions, recover on their own and do not call a doctor or visit a clinic to seek possible treatment. I understand why this is, but I encourage people who contract even mild COVID-19 to seek medical advice and ask whether they are a good candidate for a treatment to protect against progressing to severe COVID-19 (which can be deadly of course). Experiments have shown that the available treatments (Paxlovid and other anti-viral drugs or a COVID-19 treatment commonly referred to as monoclonal antibodies) are highly effective. Here’s an online tool to help you find a site that provides low-cost or free treatments (or call 1-800-232-0233): https://covid-19-test-to-treat-locator-dhhs.hub.arcgis.com/.
7) These COVID-19 treatments, which are either authorized for use on an emergency basis or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, reduce the risk of a mild case turning into a severe or deadly case of COVID-19. The treatments should usually be started within 5-7 days after testing positive for the coronavirus, so try to seek medical help as soon as possible. Here’s a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) page with somewhat technical details about anti-viral drugs for COVID-19 (9/26/22): https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/antiviral-therapy/summary-recommendations/. And here’s an NIH page with technical details about monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID-19 (8/18/22): https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/anti-sars-cov-2-antibody-products/anti-sars-cov-2-monoclonal-antibodies/.
8) This short piece by Kathy Katella at Yale Medicine provides an accessible round-up of all COVID-19 treatments currently available in the U.S. (10/4/22). For each treatment (Paxlovid, remdesivir, bebtelovimab, molnupiravir, and Evusheld), the post lists basic information about the treatment, when it was authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, who is eligible for it, how it is administered or taken, any side effects, and briefly how the treatment works and its effectiveness: https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/covid-19-treatment-drugs.
9) Some negative and somewhat misleading messages have circulated about the anti-viral drug Paxlovid. Yes, there have been some cases of people who have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (and got sick again in some cases) four or five days after finishing their five-day course of Paxlovid pills, an experience called “Paxlovid rebound.” But some people with COVID-19 who do not take Paxlovid also have experienced a “rebound” and tested positive for the coronavirus after recovering from their initial infection. The rebound rate among people who take Paxlovid (3 out of 11 people) is higher than it is among people who do not take it (1 out of 25 people), one study concluded, writes Katelyn Jetelina at Your Local Epidemiologist (10/7/22). But if a medical professional tells you that Paxlovid is indicated for you, I would worry more about the increased risk of severe COVID-19 by not taking Paxlovid than about a rebound case after taking Paxlovid (most such subsequent cases were milder in at least one very small study published 10/6/22 in Clinical Infectious Diseases). And Jetelina writes, “if you take Paxlovid, you will still make antibodies and T cells. In fact, this [same] study found that you make more antibodies,” she writes:
ENTERTAINMENT:
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15) SOUND ON, watch all the way through, this is a dramatization:
16) https://viralpostgenerator.com/
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Love/In friendship, Robin
Not smart to promote genocide.